the tangible.

It has been nearly a year since I have added to this blog.  Mostly it is because while I think of mom all of the time, I don't often have things that I feel comfortable sharing.  It is very true for me that as the months and years go by since she passed, the seriously emotional moments fade and I get into a regular routine of thinking of her, honoring her, dreaming about her, and carrying on with my day-to-day life.  Recently, however, Dan and I made a big step (ok several).  We graduated school (me medical school, him residency), we got married (yay!!) and we began a move to San Antonio, TX.  I knew the day would come when I would pack up my things and leave mid-Missouri, but I wasn't prepared for everything that this entailed.  Are we ever?

When mom passed away, all of her things were boxed up and put into storage.  As part of my compartmentalization/survival-mode of medical school, I chose not to go through any of it.  I just allowed it to be stored - for better or worse.  This has been looming over my head for the past 2 years.  I knew that I would someday have to face the 5 storage crates packed to the brim with all of my mother's belongings.

A few weeks before moving to San Antonio, I set out to go through everything and decide what to take and what to leave, knowing that I may never be living in mid-Missouri again.  What I wasn't quite prepared for was the amount of stuff mom accumulated.  She was, by accident or by choice, the family historian of sorts.  We have literally 1000's of pictures dating as far back as the 1880's from family members in Canada.  We also have letters, cards, slides, books and other keepsakes from the same time period.  It just didn't feel right to be the one to decide the fate of these memories so I have taken it upon myself to scan them and digitize them and share them with the entire family... that should keep me busy while in Texas :).

I was amazed at how easily I was able to get rid of most of her clothes and other things (furniture, linens, etc).  I was also not particularly drawn to keeping my own things such as awards, artwork, notes from friends, clothes.  It was the small things... grocery lists in her handwriting, pictures of her taken when she wasn't paying attention, her perfume... her scarves.  When I touched these things, it was as if I were closer to her.  Closer than I have been since she passed away.  It is hard to explain, but picking up a piece of paper with HER handwriting on it made me feel as though we were connected again.  Needless to say, I saved a few of the strange things such as old Yahtzee score cards that we both wrote on, and lists and cards she wrote to me.  These are some of the small things that I will touch, hold, and remember her by.

I learned several things from this adventure with my past.  Here are just a few:

1.) In my life Dan and I will strive not to hold on to as many "things" as she did.  It is really hard as a child to know what to do with things your parents leave you.  In her case, she didn't know these were things she would be leaving.  Unfortunately, Alzheimer's doesn't afford you the clarity to throw things out.  Instead, it leads to hoarding and holding on to tangible memories, almost as if when the memories you can touch are gone the ones in your head will cease to exist as well.

2.) Be kind to yourself when you are going through your parent's things.  Take breaks, embrace the memories, and let yourself feel what you feel.  I was surprised which things really triggered emotion in me and which things didn't.  Remember that most of the tangible things are just that, things.  The memories you have from those things are forever.  Take a picture of items that you don't want to forget, and then let them go.

3.) For me it was important to pick one of mom's many signature clothing items that I would keep and cherish as a constant memory of her.  For those who knew her, you remember her style and flair.  She was always classy and well put together.  She wore the most beautiful suits to work every day.  But the most vivid memory I have of my mom was getting ready in the mornings.  She would stand in the mirror and put on her make-up and I would watch so closely.  The way she put blush on her beautifully high cheekbones.  The way she put on just the right amount of eye shadow.  She always finished off her routine with a dab of her Gucci perfume... first both wrists, then her neck.  Then she would wrap a beautiful scarf around her neck and tie it just so.  She had a silk scarf to match every outfit... literally.  I found the box of her scarves when I was unpacking.  I knew in an instant that THIS was the thing that I wanted to take with me.  THE tangible memory that would be mine to carry on (if I can somehow pull off her look).  I took one out and smelled it... and I swear... I could still smell the faintest scent of her Gucci perfume.

This is the scarf collection - a picture doesn't do it justice.

My compass.

For the past few weeks I have been feeling a little more tired than usual.  A little slower in my step.  A little less eager to crawl out of bed.  Nothing serious, nothing debilitating, just constant.  It makes a lot of sense when you think about the decisions that are being made right now.  My friends and I are deciding just where we want to be for the next 3-5 years (residency).  

We are compiling our lives onto sheets of paper and sending them to the people we admire most and hoping, just hoping, that they say they admire us too.  Enough to write us a stellar letter of recommendation.  Enough to say that they would love to keep us as their own resident if they could.

We are pouring our hopes and dreams into a personal statement.  ONE PAGE that is supposed to outline who we want to be as a physician.  What we think we can contribute to a program if they choose us.  What we want to contribute to the field of medicine.

And then we seal it up, kiss it for good luck, send it into cyberspace... and we wait...

I spent some time trying to flesh out just why this was weighing on me more than it has in the past.  I have gone through this process several times before.  Undergrad applications, grad school applications, scholarship applications, internship applications, med school applications.  Sheesh... it should be like second nature to me now, right?  But this time is different.

I don't have my compass.

This morning it became clear to me, actually after watching this video (watch the first 4 mins) that my point B has been taken away.  This is actually pretty common in life, maybe best visualized in nature.  I saw it when I was watching baby birds on what seemed to be a suicide mission in my backyard this summer.  Mom says it's time (chirps it's time?) and babies start jumping.  I kind of wanted to catch them - their wings just didn't seem ready.  But they didn't come back, and the neighborhood cats didn't seem any fatter, so I am gonna call it a win for those baby birds.  Point being - we all start making decisions and moving forward without our parents.  But that isn't what is hard for me.  It is not having the option.

My mom was my compass.  My guide down the rough and bumpy road of life.  She had literally seen it all, the hardest things that life can throw at a person, and she still faced each day with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face.  She pushed me.  She gave me hope and she told me not to give up.  I have never gone through an application process without her.  I have never faced these difficult decisions without her.

So here I stand, on the edge of my nest.  My wings feel a little bit weak.  My heart is beating a little bit fast.  But in the back of my mind I just have to play her words of encouragement from the past on repeat.  I have to remember that she has loaded my toolbox with skills that didn't leave when she did.

Most importantly, I have to know that when I reach into my pocket, I will find my compass.

It has been there all along.

Crossfit saved me.

This morning I woke up and felt like crap.  I wanted to stay in bed, bring the blankets to my face, and just sink deeply into the mattress until I disappeared.  The majority of this feeling was because I stayed up way past my bedtime (Roots 'n' Blues festival... totally worth it).  Regardless, it isn't far from the feeling I have felt many times before, and it reminded me of how far I have come.

For the last few years I have felt that way far more than I haven't.  Sometimes in the afternoon or evening when I would get home from work.  Sometimes for entire weekends when I knew I should be doing something productive.  Really, ever since my mom started getting sicker.  There is a lack of motivation that comes with despair.  When you are faced with a situation that is truly insurmountable, TRULY insurmountable, your bed and sleep seem to be the only solution.  At least for me.

When mom died in February, I truly felt at times as if my body was just wasting away with her.  I knew there was so much that I needed to accomplish but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I felt despair, exhaustion, anger... the entire spectrum of feelings.  I still feel that way a lot of times.  I have spent time over the past 7 months since she died thinking that I should go to therapy, that a counselor might be the solution to the "normal bereavement" associated with losing someone.  I would call people, do the "interview" that comes with the first time meeting a counselor.  None of it felt right.

Then I found Crossfit.  Sure I have been active over the months since mom died.  It was something that I wanted to try to do to keep me sane while studying for boards.  Exercise has always made me feel good.  But Crossfit has changed my life.  I realize with this post that I am running the risk of exposing the Kool-Aid stain on my upper lip... yes, I have chugged the Crossfit Kool-Aid.  I'm still not "paleo" but I have begun the steady trend toward cutting out gluten.  My aunt Molly would be proud.

What is Crossfit?  I think this video says it well:

This month marks the first time that I literally forgot to be sad on the anniversary of mom's death.  Instead, I was at my local "box" working out with some of the coolest, toughest, and funnest people I have had the pleasure of getting to know.

This morning instead of pulling the covers over my head and letting the day take over, I climbed out of bed and made myself go to Crossfit.  I still feel like crap today... but that is again because I'm not 21 anymore.  What I don't feel is sad, depressed, or lonely.  I have found the best therapy for me and I have learned through Crossfit that there are no bounds to my mental, physical, and emotional strength.

Waves.

Mom passed away on February 12, 2012.  Since then I haven't been able to blog, I haven't really been able to take the time to stop and think about things.  That is until recently.  I have decided to take a short period of time off of medical school to process the loss of mom.  Four months late, but still equally cleansing.

I kayaked in La Jolla, California this week.  My uncle Ted and I try to do fun activities like this whenever I come out to see he and my aunt Molly.  As we navigated the waves in and out of the shore it made me start to think.  Grief is a lot like the waves on the ocean.  To which you say to me "that isn't an original thought at all, Mariah."  This analogy has certainly been made many times in the past.  But what triggered this thought to me was not the ebb and flow of waves, the coming and going of emotion, but rather the tricky way that ocean waves behave.  A wave that looks huge and terrifying can be completely manageable, while a wave that seems silly enough to turn my back to can knock me flat and send water rushing up my nose.  I would welcome a peaceful ebb and flow over the erratic and unpredictable nature of grief.

I think of mom all of the time.  Today it was during a Zumba class that I took with my aunt Molly.  We were dancing in front of a mirror to Latin songs while the instructor lead us in moves that my body just was not made to do.  I thought of the hours and hours that mom and I would spend in our living room doing Richard Simmons Sweatin' to the Oldies.  I imagined that she would absolutely LOVE this class and we would be laughing our heads off every second of the way.  This is one of those manageable waves, the ones that I can dig in and dive through and feel ok on the other side.

The other kind of waves, those hit me when I least expect it.  I am learning now to embrace them and take them on as they come.  I am confident she gave me the strength I need to tackle anything that comes my way whether I feel prepared or not.  I guess most importantly I am learning that every crappy wave that hits and sends me spinning is a chance to stop, think of her, and remember just how glad I am to have had the time I did with her.  

The medically-minded caregiver.

I am inspired today by a professor of mine who has created an informational and open blog about his cancer diagnosis.  He is using it as a teachable moment, and by doing so has touched people all over the world.  You can check out his blog at: http://dbocancerjourney.blogspot.com/  to learn more about his journey.

I don't anticipate reaching nearly that many, but hopefully some of my closer friends who are medical professionals can take note of this blog post for when they are caring for their own family members.  There is a huge burden of expectation placed on the medical professional who is also a family member of an ill person.  In my case, the burden is primarily self-imposed, but it is also evident in interactions with mom's care team.  As a medical student, I am constantly afraid I am missing something medically with my mom.  I feel this way because I am the person most present in her life, and I know (a little) about the human body and the normals and abnormals of disease.  It is probably also because she is such a unique case (her age, her presentation, her progression).  If her pupils look funny or her gait has changed, I am immediately trying to figure out what has gone wrong.  It is a painful and taxing process.  I am sure this is the case for anyone who is in the medical field and simultaneously caring for a loved one.  You know about the mistakes made everyday in medicine.  You know all too well that doctors are incredibly fallible.  You want to protect your family member from medical errors, polypharmacy, neglect, and misdiagnoses.

For me, I am always worried we have missed something big.  That there is an underlying process causing mom's illness that could have been stopped.  That when we do a post-mortem on her we will find that if we had only done _____ test we would have been able to save her memory, that I would have had her for 20 or 30 more years.  It is a painful burden to feel this way, but I am certain that I am not alone in this feeling.

Probably the most important piece of advice I have ever gotten was from a physician friend when I was talking to her about my feeling a loss of control in mom's care.  I sat down with her and was beside myself with grief.  I explained my fears that mom's care team was missing something.  That because she had been moved so much and had been passed off by so many, I was certain she was falling through the cracks.  I told her that I felt like it was my fault that this was happening because I am mom's advocate, her constant in this fluctuating process.

This was when she gave me the very best advice I could have heard at the time: "You can't do everything, Mariah.  When you are the family member of a sick person you must check your medical degree at the door and be the family member.  You cannot try to figure everything out because in the process you will drive yourself crazy.  All you can do is equip your mom with the very best medical team, and step back and TRUST them.  It is NOT your fault if something goes wrong in her medical care, it is NOT your responsibility to catch medical errors, and you can't control everything."

Medicine encourages perfection.  It pulls in people who won't settle for anything but the very, very best. Combine that with the love of a family member, and even more importantly the love of a parent, and that perfectionism runs rampant.  It is important to give to your loved ones, to be there for them, to support them.  I guess what I am learning now is that it is also important to let go and trust others.  That doesn't mean being blind to blatant mistakes.  I will always be mom's biggest advocate and will certainly fight for her to continue to have the very best care.  However, I am working diligently to give up the reigns a little bit.  To be her daughter that just happens to be a medical student, rather than a medical professional constantly on the watch when I come to see her.

Because when I come wearing my "medical professional" hat, I miss moments like this:

Innocence.

Today has been a rough day, and I come off of the heels of a rough weekend, and a rough several weeks.  Earlier today, while riding in the car, I stared blankly out of the window – deep in thought.  As my eyes drifted back into focus I caught glimpse of a little girl staring back at me out of the window of a school bus.  She stuck out her tongue and made a ridiculous face at me.  I just stared back blankly.

I often envy others who seem free from cares.  Typically this is in the context of studying for medical school.  I will gaze out of the window of a coffee shop and see a group of college students trekking down the street just having a blast, not a care in the world.  I am embarrassed to admit it, but when I am really in the thick of things at school I want to wring their necks.  I envy their freedom to do what they want and their lack of responsibility.  Of course I chose my path, and I realize how irrational these thoughts are, but it is amazing what 12 hours of straight coffee and studying will do to even the sanest person (not that I am sane).

Today this little girl made me feel something entirely different.  She made me wish for my innocence again.  She made me want to forget how terribly hard life can be.  I don’t blame children for their innocence.  Rather I want to bottle it up and take a drink when I really feel overwhelmed.  I just wish for the days when I didn’t know how difficult things really are. 

My mom has taken another turn for the worse.  I have watched as the system has continuously failed my family as we try to navigate the ins and outs of her care.  She is a unique patient, I get it, but she is a person nonetheless.  She has a story, a pathway, a tragic plunge into the darkness that has now overtaken her.  She is scared and tired and alone in her mind.  I am left to be her storyteller to anyone who will listen to me. 

The problems I am facing lie with communication, or lack thereof.  Isn’t that always the case?  I feel alone trying to help her survive what seems to be an endless battle with medications, and nurses, and EMTs, and social workers, and probably worst of all, doctors.  It is like the game of telephone that you play when you are young.  The more she is shipped around.   The more people who get involved in her care (more accurately, lack of care) the more the story changes.  In this litigious society we live in, no one wants to take the blame when I catch their mistakes and oversight, and certainly no one wants to seem neglectful.  No one wants to seem too busy to take the time to get to know her, to get to know me.  But very few people have. 

In med school we are taught from physician lecturers to care for the caregiver, to take the burden off of them whenever possible.  Let them know it isn’t their fault, that they shouldn’t feel guilty or sad, and that they aren’t alone. 

Only once in the last several years, yesterday in the ER, did I feel complete support from someone in the healthcare field.  An EMT held me in her arms and just told me how very sorry she was and how hard this all must be.  And I wept.  I wept for the realization from a medical professional that this is just not fair.  I wept to know that SOMEONE noticed just how hard this is and just how scared my mother and I are.  I wept because that sort of embrace should be the norm, not the exception.

I am on a plane right now to California.  I reluctantly left with my mom still in limbo with her care moving forward.  I need this time away to think and reflect.  There is one thing I do know, with loss of innocence comes a gain of perspective, and for me a burning desire to make things right.  My mother’s story will be told and she will be comfortable, safe, and respected if it is the very last thing I do. 

I draw strength.

I draw strength from my mother's smile and the twinkle in her eyes.  As of late, it is not uncommon for both to be absent, but occasionally I catch a glimpse and when I do, I try to capture it on photo.  Today I celebrate the beauty of my mother's smile and the way in which it keeps me going when things seem too hard to handle.  Here are a few photos from the past couple of months:

I think I bored her with all of my photo taking!

Playing it cool.

Sharing kisses.

This photo is particularly meaningful.  My mom hasn't cried with me in months.  She hasn't really registered who I am much lately.  But last Friday, she knew who I was.  She looked me in the eyes, and we both cried together.  She told me she loved me to the sky and back.  

In dreams.

As of late I have had vivid dreams about mom.  It is weird to dream about someone who is still living but to feel as though they are visiting you from another place.  In my dream last night she was starting to lose her memory.  Unlike the real life scenario, in this dream she told me she was scared.

She has always been so proud, so strong, and so put together.  Save for a few moments of vulnerability throughout the years, she has never admitted fear to me.  I could see it so clearly on her face when I would visit her, but she never said it.  

Last night, in my dream, she did.  And in response to her fear, I looked her in the eye and told her that we should just dance through it.  And we did.  We danced through the aisles of the large convention hall we were standing in (it was a dream... who knows why we were in a convention hall).  People stared but we were laughing so hard we didn't even see them.

Mom is gone now.  Her body is still there, but the soul that inhabited it has dissipated away.  In person I try to calm her fears, to tell her it will be ok.  When she cries softly "Please help me..." I wish that I could grab her hands and just dance her around her room.  I hope that it is in fact her soul that I am speaking with in my dreams.  Or maybe our dreams are melding into one so that she knows what I am saying when I say it to her.  Because I want to believe that I can calm her fears.  I want to believe that at night, when I lay down to sleep, I am meeting my mom to dance.   

Bedtime for Bonzo.

Tonight as I closed my books and shut off my desk lamp I said aloud to myself "It's bedtime for Bonzo!"  Immediately my mind shot back to bedtime rituals of old.  This was my mom's affectionate way of telling me it was time for bed when I was young.  I am sure it was met with a series of moans and groans from me, but truly, being tucked in was one of my favorite pastimes with mom.

• Sometimes it was a bedtime story.  Usually a Canadian classic such as "Make way for ducklings" or "Love you forever" (which is incredibly pertinent for me now - read it).  
• Then it was a lullaby.  My favorite was "Here comes the sandman," though she had several.  
• Then came my favorite - the multiple mini-kisses on my face.  Each day we would add another kiss until we would forget how many we had gotten to (I think one time we made it all the way to 2 months), and we would start all over again.  They were tiny little kisses that tickled and made me laugh.  
• Finally it was time to be rolled up in my blanket.  She would shove her hands on either sides of my blankets until I was wrapped in a blanket cocoon.  While she did this she would say, "snug as a bug in a rug!"  
• As she left my bedroom she would switch off my light and turn on the multicolored Christmas lights around my door.  My nightlight.  

I feel all of these sensations as if they were yesterday.  I miss being tucked in by mom.  I wonder sometimes if I miss it more because I know she won't ever do it again.

Now I tuck her in.  I brush her hair aside and give her mini kisses all over her forehead.  She giggles.  I sing her lullabies and tell her I love her to the sky and back.  

I guess that this is the normal progression of growing older.  Roles change, we adapt and find new ways to gain fulfillment.  I just think sometimes, on nights like tonight, I long to be tucked in like the old days.

cuddle bunny.

Sometimes all you want is to cuddle up next to your favorite person to take a nice long nap.  Today mom and I did just that.  We turned on Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan pre-party years) and slept.

I remember people telling me when I was young to enjoy the fun I was having.  The free afternoons, the planned recesses during the day, the fact that I could eat 20 Reese's PB cups without immediately seeing it manifest on my thighs.  These are things I didn't understand until now.  Now I live in a constant state of "go-mode."  Now my worries seem large and my recesses seem few and far between.  This morning with my mom brought me back to old times.

I appreciate them more now.

The baby doll.

For the purpose of my post, her name will be Erma... I don't want to give away identity, med school has taught me this much.  Next to her at the dinner table was a ratty baby doll, worse for the wear and missing an arm.  On the doll's soft white pillow of a body were stains, no doubt remnants left by the many who have held and rocked her to sleep.  Today she was Erma's baby.  As Erma struggled to get up from the table the nurse's aide (frustrated at Erma's 3rd or 4th attempt to leave the table early) shouted from across the table "Erma, you can't get up!  Your baby is still at the table!  You don't want to forget her, she will be so sad."  Erma immediately realized what had happened.  She sat back down, and with the help of the aide she grabbed the doll and began rocking her.

Erma: "I am so sorry my baby girl, I didn't mean to leave you behind."

Erma rocked the baby and spoke softly to her.  She kissed her on the head and told her she loved her very much.  She spoke as a mother would in soft tones with love in her eyes.  When dessert came out Erma tried desperately to share her cookie with the baby, giving the first bite to her as any mother would.  If you have ever visited a nursing home you know that dessert is the best part of the meal for most residents.  The sweet taste buds are some of the last to go as you age and so most never lose their sweet tooth.  That being said, it was quite incredible that she offered her treat up with such selflessness.  She tried over and over to coax the baby doll to eat her cookie.  She finally said with a twinkle in her eye and a laugh that would make anyone smile: "Well if she isn't going to eat it, I am sure not going to let it go to waste!"

It is amazing as we age the faculties that go and the faculties that stay.  We lose eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, many of our senses.  Sometimes we lose our grip on reality.  But my encounters have taught me that the elderly, even at the latest stages of dementia, still maintain fundamental emotions and feelings.  Love, fear, joy, anxiety.  For Erma it manifested with the most intimate of interactions with her baby.  An interaction that could have mirrored a new mother sitting on a park bench cooing at her baby girl.

It's just stuff.

My hard drive crashed this week at a very inopportune time.  Not that there is ever a good time for your hard drive to crash, but this felt like especially poor timing. I was heading out of town to visit family and I had two deadlines for research I have been working on.  The morning it happened I had already woken an hour late and proceeded to spend 2 hours on the phone with Apple Care specialists who told me that there was nothing more they could do without seeing my computer in person (in St. Louis).  I was then 3 hours late and racing to pack and get my dog to the boarding facility in time to drive the 30 minutes to pick mom up from Columbia only to drive her BACK to Jefferson City for her dental appointment.  A dental appointment that we had been waiting months for.

The day before I had given the assisted living facility careful instructions on my mom's appointment.

1.) Please make sure she is dressed and ready to go (mentally ready being the most important)
2.) Please have a list of her medications ready for me to bring
3.) Please have her midday medications prepared so she can take them with lunch when we eat

I was late and anxious and frustrated with every slow driver on the road.  When I walked through the doors to get my mom she stood up excitedly "You're here!!" she said.  She is always so very excited to see me when I come to visit.  I didn't hear her excitement or see the happiness on her face.  Instead I saw her inside-out pants and 4 layers of shirts.  I saw that no one had prepared her for her visit to the doctor.  I quickly grabbed her and hustled her to the bedroom.  We changed in record time (much to her chagrin and confusion), and we were off.  I stopped by the nurses station on my way out.  They hadn't prepared anything for her, no meds list, no medication, they didn't even know she was leaving.  I was frustrated and late, and hot, and tempermental, and everyone could sense it.  I hastily gave them the fax number for the doctor and requested they PLEASE send the med list ahead of me so that I didn't get scolded when I arrived in Jeff City.

We hopped in the car and zoomed out of the drive and onto the highway to get to mom's appointment.  Mom knew I was stressed.  She was silent for the first few minutes and I immediately felt guilty that I hadn't greeted her with more excitement.  I told her how happy I was to see her and how pretty she looked... but I didn't know what else to say.  I needed to concentrate on driving.  I switched on the oldies station and prayed for a song that would make the drive less intense.  My prayers were answered...



As the song started I began to immediately feel less stressed.  I looked over at mom and literally cracked up laughing.  She was head-bobbing and rocking out to this song as if it were a live performance and she was in the front row.  I listened to the lyrics (between my sweet dance-driving moves) and the stresses and anxiety of the day were gone:

"I just want to celebrate another day of livin', I just want to celebrate another day of life"

• We were late for the appointment... who cares, people can wait
• Her med list wasn't there when we arrived... who cares, it just took a phone call
• The doctor made no logical conclusions and pushed us off to another visit... who cares, we had fun riding together
• My hard drive was lost... who cares, it's just stuff (ok... maybe I am still struggling with this one)

Regardless of the crazy events of the day, I was with my very best friend.  She was just happy to celebrate another day of living and why shouldn't I feel the same way?  We decided to celebrate the day with Ryan's buffet (mom's favorite).  A full meal of whatever her heart desired, followed by a dessert sampler plate, hand-picked by me for mom's eating pleasure.  As she took a big bite of coconut cream pie, we caught each others eye.  This time I took a moment to appreciate the excitement she expressed at being with me.  This time I celebrated it.  

The dance.

My mom used to laminate everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Any time any of my friends or classmates were in the newspaper she would cut it out, put on a nice thick backing, and laminate the heck out of the article. It was always slightly embarrassing to approach kids at school with the article all shiny and perfectly cut out. I thought for sure I was going to pass out from embarrassment when I handed it to them.

Mom would also cut out poems and quotes that resonated with her. She often would copy (and of course laminate) them for me. They would collect dust somewhere in a drawer because, while I never really appreciated them fully, I felt terrible just tossing them in the trash. After all, she did feel as though the words were important to hear.

One poem shot into my mind today while I was visiting mom at the assisted living facility where she lives. "Slow dance" was a poem she gave me as I was heading off to college. It was beautifully laminated and typed in a cursive script on the best possible paper. I read through it and realized this was more than a poem, it was a plea from her to me. Honestly, it didn't fully resonate then.

Today while visiting mom we stopped for an ice cream break with the rest of the residents. The nurse turned on some music and mom and I decided to slow dance with one another like we used to do so many times in our kitchen when I was growing up. The song "I'll be seeing you" by Billie Holliday came on and we were off.

While driving home today I suddenly remembered the poem mom laminated for me almost 10 years ago. It finally made sense to me in a way it didn't then.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids

on a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down

Don't dance so fast

Time is short

The music won't last

Do you run through each day

On the fly

When you ask "How are you?"

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done,

do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast

Time is short

The music won't last

Ever told your child,

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

not seen his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

'Cause you never had time

To call and say "Hi"?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift...Thrown away...

Life is not a race

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

I promise to slow down, mama. Especially if it means that I will get to enjoy more time each day dancing with you.

Joshua Tree National Park

Ted and I took a trip up to Joshua Tree Park. It was a wonderful bonding experience and the views were more beautiful than I can describe. Instead of carrying on about the trip, I decided to upload photos... they can do the talking.

The view on the way in

There were THOUSANDS of windmills... alternative energy... what a beautiful thing.

Following in Teddy's footsteps

Blooming cactus.

My favorite photo of the trip

Joshua Tree is known for the great places for climbing. This is one of them.

At the top of the mountain looking down.

Fun rocks! Looked like a gnome to me...

Ted and Josh.

Josh and I.

More giant rocks.

The baby flower growing out of the sand...

Ted and I climbed this mountain, it was a fun and exhausting trip up. Totally worth it.

Nature's perfect picture frame!

Ted and I's favorite plant in the desert - called a paper bag bush.

The San Andreas fault.

My attempts at a self-photo.

Serious concentration.

A pretty sunbeam!

Thanks for sharing your beauty Joshua Tree. It was a pleasure.